#5: [20-Oct-10]

#4: [26-Nov-09]

#2: [20-Jun-04]

#1: [25-Apr-04]

30-Aug-2006 -- Making the most of the Turkish National holiday "Zafer Bayram" (Victory Day), we decided to visit the Yedigöller ("Seven Lakes") National Park and hopefully visit confluence 41N 32E at the same time.

We decided to leave Ankara on the Tuesday evening and stay in a hotel near Bolu so that we could have an early start the following morning. In reality, we did not save much time and if we repeated the visit we would drive directly from Ankara.

On the Wednesday morning we backtracked towards Ankara and turned off the road at Yeniçağa heading in the direction of Mengen. Although a small town, Mengen is famous for producing a number of Turkey's well known chefs; unfortunately, as we had just had breakfast, we did not stop to taste the delights.

After Mengen, we continued on the road in the direction of Devrek and turned off a few kms later for the National Park. Although the confluence point is only a short distance from the junction, we decided to continue on to the Park and visit the point on the return journey.

The road surface is initially OK but deteriorates before long and the c. 40 km to the Lakes is also very twisty. Still this adds to the remoteness. The Lakes, named Büyükgöl, Deringöl, Seringöl, Nazlıgöl, Sazlıgöl, İncegöl, and Küçükgöl are in relatively close proximity to each other, although the absence of large numbers of people gives the area a tranquil feel. It is a place for relaxing as there are no shops, hotels etc. The only accommodation are a few cabins/bungalows, which can be rented out from the Forestry Ministry.

During the walk around the Lakes we came upon the unusual phenomenon of conjoined trees, whereby a tree has grown and attached itself to the trunk of a second tree. Following our walk and an enjoyable picnic, we headed back towards Mengen and hopefully time to visit the Confluence. The main road took us very close to the point, although as we really needed to get back to Ankara, we had to settle for what I calculated to be 90 m from the point. Whilst technically within the 100 m requirement, I felt we had not given it our best shot and hope to visit it a second time to get an "all zeros" reading.